Saturday, August 22, 2015

There is a story,
common throughout mythologies whose language has Indo-European roots,
of a thunder/lightning god who does battle with a great
dragon/serpent. The details all vary, but the core remains the same –
the storm god takes on the dragon and defeats him. It is tale of
order winning over chaos. In Greek myths, Zeus battles Typhon. The
Hittites have Teshub fighting Illuyanka. Thor battles with
Jörmungandr in the Norse tales. And in Slavic
mythology, there is Perun and Veles – Perun, god of Thunder, and
Veles, god of the Underworld, who sometimes takes the form of a
dragon. It is this myth which forms the basis for GodsAmongMen.

The
idea came when a call for submissions came out for transgressive
divinity-themed erotica. Having an interest in dragons, and
particularly Slavic ones, I thought, hmm, well, this might work for
it. And because the call specified transgression, it meant I didn’t
have to hold myself to the often stringent list of things you can’t
do in erotica. I let my mind go wild. I decide that rather than just
eroticise the original tale I’d update it and have present day
equivalents as the centre, and intercut this with my telling of the
original story in ancient days. Both of these gods, after the
Christianisation of the Slavs, joined the Christian canon as St Ilya
(Elijah) and St Nikolai (Nicholas), so that gave me their names, and
from there, I let rip on the transgressive possibilities that two
rivals might have, while their mythological history began to bleed in
to their story. The sex in this story is often violent, bestial, and
always a battle.

I
finished it, got a friend to read over it, called it StormsofAncientGods, and sent it
off. The editors accepted it. I was amazed. It was my second or third
acceptance, and when the anthology came out, I was delighted and
startled to be in such fine company and among a bunch of stories that
were unafriad of the darker, edgier and sometimes frightening sides
of sex. Hell, I’d been pleased with what I wrote, but wondered how
my work had ended up in the anthology at all, the quality was so
high. I had grand hopes for what Freaky Fountain Press were trying to
do.

Alas,
Freaky Fountain Press closed up shop later that year. We all got our
rights back, and StormsofAncientGods needed a home. When Forbidden Fiction, with whom I’d already worked for my
novella Body&Bow(m/f/m, creative uses of violin and cello bows if you’re
interested...) put out a call for stories about gods and goddess, it
seemed the right place to send it.

I
got the acceptance and was very pleased indeed. Some edits were
expected, but I thought it was going to be a simple run through with
some minor adjustments to sentences. Straightforward, right?

Wrong.
My editor put me to work. Really put me to work. I could see his
points, certainly, but it was a massive rewiring job (a metaphor he
used, so aptly) to reign in POVs (I’d written an omniscient POV
which didn’t quite work), enhance some scenes that really needed
more detail (I’ve rarely been accused of waffling – editors
regularly ask for more detail than less), hack out the multiplicity
of commas (I still like commas but they were definitely excessive)
and ease off on the passive construction (I think in my head passive
sentences feel more ‘storytelling’ and ‘mystical’ which is
why they ended up in there). There was all that to do, as well as add
in chapters, and then I had the bright idea of adding in a new
subplot. If I hadn’t been aware of how much an editor can influence
your work for the better I was now, and in the best way possible, for
he made suggestions but also ensured it was always my voice coming
through.

Simple?
No. A lot of work? Hell yeah. Worth it? Utterly. StormsofAncientGods became GodsAmongMen (another request was to change the title), and it is
one of the stories of which I’m most proud. If you’re intrigued,
do read on...

Blurb

Ilya,
self-appointed protector of his Croatian coastal town, hates Nikolai,
the one man who has never bent to his will. Meanwhile, the gods—Perun
the Thunderer and Veles the dragon god of the underworld—do combat
in ancient times. Ilya and Nikolai discover the battles of old may
not be so far in the past, and that each of them may be closer to the
gods than they could have imagined.

Excerpt

Nikolai
leaned languidly against the frame of the window of his second-floor
study and watched the bay below, and beyond. The water shimmered with
the afternoon sun. Yachts and fishing boats bobbed at the docks, and
in the distance windsurfers sped along the Adriatic. Vendors sold
cold lemonade along the boardwalk while mothers and fathers pushed
prams and held dripping ice-cream cones for their capering toddlers.
Three old men sat on a bench: one stared vacant out over the harbour
while the others contemplated a chessboard. A pair of teenagers
kissed and giggled as they sat on the low wall above the water. Other
groups played in the water or sunned themselves on the beach. Nikolai
smiled; this was summer at its most perfect, for the day was
pleasantly hot, and peaceful.

That
was, until Ilya charged along the harbour road in his bright red
American Mustang. He parked the car, slammed the door and stomped up
the boardwalk. Straight towards Nikolai’s house.

Nikolai
narrowed his eyes, glaring down at Ilya. Although he’d been
expecting a visit, he ground his teeth together.

There
he was: Ilya Gromovnik. The same nick-name as his father, also the
namesake of St Ilya. All of them—saint, father, and son—called
Gromovnik; that is to say, Thunderer. Ilya Gromovnik, owner of the
furniture factory, the largest employer in town, president of the
chamber of commerce. So well-respected by everyone in the town for
his capacity to employ many people, to be good to them in return for
their complete loyalty; for his generous donations to public works
(the painting of the town hall, the play parks for children, the new
local museum); for his gorgeous, buxom wife Dobrana and that brood of
children. How many did the man have now? Six? Nikolai had lost count.

His
striking looks aided him too. Ilya was a tall man, his chest square
and broad. As he charged along the boardwalk, the sun caught glints
of his close-cropped coppery hair and long, neatly kept beard. His
features—handsome and with a hawk-like nose—were creased in anger
and he walked as if he owned everything that lay before him.

Nikolai
supposed in many ways he did. Not only did he have his factory, but
he also had his house on the hill that overlooked the town with
pompous pride. It was high enough that anyone in the market square
could gaze up over the rooftops and see Ilyaʼs home, watching over
them all. Like a beloved god.

Beloved.
Nikolai snorted. Feared is the better word. For who would dare to
cross a man who could make drug cartels scurry away to neighbouring
towns with a single phone call, an action the police could not take?
Who would fight with a man who, when riff-raff sailors made trouble
when they came ashore, would ensure said sailors would be found
floating in the harbour the next day? And those who failed to give
him proper respect or decided to try and run the town or their
business a little differently had felt Ilya’s wrath, and found
themselves friendless or destitute.

Lord
and protector. In a town where councillors were weak-willed and the
police ineffectual, who needed a mayor when they had Ilya Gromovnik?

Nikolai
sighed. He was well aware of the power of Ilya’s rage. Well aware,
too, that everyone in town knew that he and Ilya despised each other.
Even now in the bay below, the teenage girl turned her head.
Likewise, a father pushing a pram saw Ilya’s progress; stopped to
grasp his wife’s shoulders and whisper something into her ear. The
man who’d been staring dumbfounded out to sea started as Ilya
passed him, and a child’s ice-cream tumbled to the ground as the
kid froze to gaze at Ilya. As Ilya closed the distance, Nikolai could
feel and hear—even through the glass—Ilya’s thundering purpose
and the hush that fell over the bay. Only the gulls continued to
chatter.

They
were not business rivals; Nikolai ran a shipping business. He, too,
was a member of the chamber of commerce. Longer than Ilya at that—he
suspected that Ilya would have blocked his application had Ilya been
a member first. However, he kept a number of smaller operations
running that the upright and self-righteous Ilya would have loved to
have seen abolished. His dance club, for instance, which on paper was
perfectly legal, but where Nikolai well knew all kinds of licentious
and illicit behaviour took place. His patrons—mostly tourists, male
and there for other men—as far as he was concerned, were dancing
and embracing the joys of life. Nikolai turned a smirking blind eye
to what else besides dancing went on there.

Someone
at the chamber told Nikolai he was surprised that Ilya hadn’t run
him out of town yet. Nikolai had only grinned. Ilya probably would
have if not for Nikolai’s generosity: people in need of loans found
themselves with a discreet envelope slipped through the door.
Builders would arrive at a storm-damaged house and do the repair
work, refusing payment and shrugging when asked why they had come. No
trumpeting, no fanfare, but Nikolai was aware that his name was
mentioned. He’d have preferred otherwise, but secrets were a near
impossibility to keep.

The
only kept secrets he knew were the ones between himself and Ilya.

People
left in Ilya’s wake, quickly packing their bags and rushing up the
beach. On the horizon, dark clouds began to gather, the signs of a
sea-born storm, bringing with it a suffocating heat.

Nikolai
sighed, rolled his shoulders back, and stood up straight. For all his
irritation and hatred of Ilya, this meeting was unavoidable.
Inevitable. The wheel that had been set in motion since they were
children was now rolling towards a climax that neither of them could
ignore.

Jacqueline
Brocker lives and writes near Cambridge, England. Her short erotic
fiction has appeared in various anthologies, and her novellas and
other short stories have been published by Forbidden Fiction.
Originally from Australia, when not writing she does Scottish Country
Dancing and pokes at Pinterest for pictures of dragons and
interesting men.